Gen Z, It’s Not Good to Have Your Boss Hate You
For any young worker who needs to hear this, your power in the labor market won’t last and quietly quitting could be setting you up to get loudly fired.
It’s not too late to knuckle down.
Photographer: d3sign/Moment RF via Getty Images
Every generation faces a skeptical reception in the labor force. Baby boomers were called self-centered, Gen X was lazy and millennials were considered entitled. For Gen Z, it’s the same — but different. When I was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, there was the normal buzz about economic conditions and climate change. But everyone I spoke with mainly wanted to talk about something else: How the pandemic has changed the labor market, and especially how it has affected Gen Z.
Young people have never entered the labor force with more power — unemployment is low and the demand for labor is high — and they are exercising that power by changing workplace norms. The good times may not last, though, and Gen Z could wind up being the ones who pay the bigger price.